Big Bang Theory: The Morpheus Conundrum
by Thor2000
Summary: One night watching movies, and Leonard and everyone has bad dreams. Much like everyone else -
1. Chapter 1

Fury found him in the old boxing hall over on Decatur Street. It was one of the last places left in Manhattan from the Forties that still existed from his past except for the old pizza place and the Palace Theater. Short and topped with a mane of short brown hair, Leonard pounded his wrapped hands into the punching bag. His eyebrows were in a scowl over his eyes. Sweat ran down his face as he pounded the bag. The bag shook and jostled from the barrage of concrete punches pummeling it. Leonard hit it with his left and then his right. His muscles rippled with every strike, his chest expanded with every breath as he took his daily regime out on the bag.

"Captain, we have another mission for you." Fury spoke up as the bag suddenly tore loose from the ceiling and flung itself five feet away on to the floor from Leonard. Looking at it with his one good eye, Fury lifted his head up to Leonard Hofstadter, the only living recipient of Dr. Erskine's project to create a team of super-soldiers during World War Two. Dabbing his face and chest off with a white towel, Leonard turned bare-chested and clad in just his sweat pants to the SHIELD Director. Fury handed him a file to peruse.

"Ten years ago, the government realized that normal prisons were not strong enough to hold the increasing number of superhuman criminals out there, so we created one." Fury briefed him. "It was called the Vault, and it did its job perfectly for twelve years until there was a major break-out."

"What kind of name is Doctor Octopus?" Leonard asked.

"We don't come up with the names, we just incarcerate them." Fury spoke. "Eleven of the worst just broke free and could be making their way to New York City. One would be bad enough, but all of them together and working together would be catastrophic. That's where you and your team come in."

Leonard lifted one eye up to him.

"You're our first line of defense."

"Lucky us…." Leonard mumbled. It sounded like a rogue's gallery of circus sideshow rejects. Dr. Octopus, the Green Goblin, Sabertooth, Venom, Sinestro, Mystique, Bane, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze…. Just to name a few. Clad once more in his red, white and blue, Leonard took his shield and call on his teammates.

"Avengers Assemble!"

Ready for action, Leonard was in costume and went to meet them at the center of New York City at Times Square. This was where SHIELD found him after he had wakened from the ice. Over fifty years, fifty years had passed while he had been trapped in the ice. The world had changed around him, and the enemy had changed with it. His shield pulled over his back with the strap on his shoulder, Leonard waited to meet his fellow Avengers. Who would arrive first? Thor or Iron Man? As he waited, the wind picked up, and newspapers on the tabloid stand blew around everywhere.

"Ready for action old chum!" Sheldon appeared out of nowhere in his Flash costume.

"What the hell? The Flash?" Leonard groaned and watched as Sheldon in that red bodysuit and mask made several absurd karate poses. "Sheldon, you're supposed to be Iron Man! How could you screw that up? Come on! The Flash even isn't in the Marvel Universe!"

"Leonard…" Sheldon postured and hemmed a bit with short bird-like moves. "May I remind you that this is your dream, and I am completely at the whim of your imagination; I cannot exactly check a call list as to which character I am supposed to be. Also, might I suggest that this slight error is your brain's tendency to attribute the same disappointments of the real Sheldon to myself, thus completing the illusion that I'm the real Sheldon. Any way, as far as the Flash not being in the Marvel Universe, may I remind you that you selected several villains from both the Marvel and DC Universes for us to battle?" He made that same arrogant face he had whenever he was speaking down to Leonard.

"Why did I dream that you could talk?" Leonard spoke.

"Again, not under my control…" They heard lightning cracking and looked up to the sky crackling with lightning and dark blue and violet storm clouds rolling in. It was the definite calling card of a thunder god with a magic hammer. Sheldon and Leonard looked up expecting their friends Howard and Raj, but something was wrong with this image. Amidst the distance red cape in the sky, it looked as if the distant thunder god was carrying something. Why was Raj carrying Howard or Howard carrying Raj? What was going on here? Standing on the sidewalk, Leonard and Sheldon looked at each other as the top came down on top of them.

"Hola, amigos!" Howard stood in the guise of Hawkeye with Bernadette in the attire of Thor. She wasn't taller, but her long blonde hair was much longer than it usually was. Dressed like some sort of Valkyrie with a huge red cape, her petite and buxom figure in the leather outfit and Viking armor was both awkward and awesome at the same time. Her chest shield looked like the nose cones of two IBM missiles wielded together into a chest plate. Leonard was having a fit.

"Hello, Bernadette…" Sheldon greeted her.

"So…" Howard pulled his modified laser-sighted bow out. "Who are we fighting?"

"Howard, where's Raj?" Leonard whined as his dream became ridiculous. "Why is Bernadette Thor?"

"I don't know." Howard beamed and looked back at his powerful Asgardian girlfriend. "Isn't she adorable as a goddess?" He and Bernadette beamed to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend and giggled. "I think the costume makes her more than hot." Howard had a thought. "Leonard, are you harboring feelings for my girlfriend?"

"No!" Leonard resisted. "I have no feelings like that for Bernadette…. Oh, this is ridiculous. We can't fight anyone like this!"

"Oh, come on Leonard… Give me a chance." Bernadette reacted hurt. "I mean, look at what I can do." She lifted Mjolnir and the sky cracked with thunder. Pedestrians scrambled to get out of the bad weather and ducked into shops and restaurants as a bolt of lightning hit Sheldon. Speeding across the street in the blink of an eye, Bernadette hit him with lightning again. Speeding to the end of the street, Sheldon was struck by lightning again. Rushing to the next block in a second, Bernadette blasted him again without even seeing him. Howard and Leonard started laughing as Sheldon raced back to them. Suddenly appearing, Sheldon returned unable to with his cowl and costume burning and scorched from the lightning. With his brown hair sticking out of his torched mask, he looked like a partially burned cherry Popsicle.

"Stop hitting me with lightning!"

"I love this hammer!" Bernadette giggled. "I love being a goddess! I want to wake up like this!"

"How could this dream get any worse?" Leonard grieved.

"Sorry I'm late…" Raj dropped down from the roof of the restraunt nearby as if he was the Hindu Spiderman in the black costume, but when he stood up, Leonard started freaking out a bit more. Raj was wearing a full-body Kevlar bodysuit, and he was carrying a staff that he could use as a weapon.

"No! No-no-no-no-no-no-no!" Leonard was screaming. "I got to draw the line here. I wanted Penny as the Black Widow. I gotta stand my ground on this."

"Why can't I be the Black Widow?" Raj looked as if he was about to cry. "Come on!" He paused about to scream. "I am not being Aqua-Man again! He sucks."

"Please wake up…" Leonard was stressing out as his dream went further askew. From overhead, he heard the sound of turbines getting closer, and the five friends arched their heads upward to the red and silver armored figure descending down between them. It looked like a robotic knight from out of the days of Arthurian lore with a shining heavily armored battlesuit covering the entirety of this figure's form and two small-lighted lens in the flat curved faceplate that served as this being's identity. The air rippled and the wind rushed as the figure descended, but up close, Leonard was first to realize that this figure was smaller and sleeker than the Robert Downey Jr. version of the movies. It was thin and more feminine with an exaggerated female shape comprising an overly heavy chest piece atop two long legs. Howard smirked a dirty little grin and looked to Raj. Bernadette looked as if she were about to start giggling, but Sheldon just stood in the background with his arms crossed over his chest distantly observing as Leonard came to face this feminized hero.

"Penny?" Leonard watched her land with a loud metal clank hitting the sidewalk.

"Sorry, sport!" Amy Farrah Fowler popped her helmet open and mugged a bit without her glasses. "Sorry, I'm late, but it takes a while getting used to this new gear."

"Why Amy Farrah Fowler…" Sheldon reacted impressed. "I never would have imagined…."

"Neither would I…." Amy simpered a nervous embarrassed smile. "This costume is giving me a wedgie you'd never believe."

"This is the worst dream I've ever had…." Leonard turned round and sat on the curb. "Does anyone know where Penny is?"

"What do mean you have nothing in my size?!" A voice screamed from the dress shop, and a cash register smashed its way through the front window and rolled across the street as a taxicab swerved to miss it and a van came to a screeching stop. Dress shop employees and customers started racing out in a panic from the front doors. The lights were flashing on and off. Someone was screaming.

"Good Lord, Leonard, you forgot about the Hulk!" Howard revealed, and Sheldon shrieked like a little girl then vanished rather than face the one person he was afraid of overdosed on gamma radiation. Howard and Bernadette exchanged worried looks, and Raj hailed a taxi.

"Dude, you can handle this yourself." He slipped into the taxi's back seat. "India, and keep driving…" He told the driver.

"Look, Leonard…" Howard and Bernadette watched Raj's taxi pull off and started stepping back. Bernadette started swinging her hammer like the blades of a helicopter. "You don't need us here… You, Amy and Penny can handle this on your own… we'd just get in the way." He turned secretly to his girlfriend. "Get us out of here…"

Leonard and Amy watched as Howard lifted up carried by the power of Bernadette's Asgardian hammer, then looked at each other nervously. There was more screaming and yelling from the dress ship as a large cracked started in the sidewalk under them then started cracking up the side of the building. Leonard looked scared. Amy rolled her eyes back and forth nervously.

"Leonard!" Penny screamed unseen from the darkened structure. "What did you do to me?!"

"What?" Amy pretended to hear a message through her helmet. "Yes… I'll be right there." She looked to Leonard. "Gotta go, Commissioner Gordon needs me…" She pooped her helmet back in place with a metallic clink and activated her boosters to lift her off the ground.

"No, he didn't…" Leonard recognized the lie. "And besides, Commissioner Gordon is a Batman character!" He watched her taking off and flying off toward the Empire State Building. "Get back here!"

"Leonard!" Penny screamed getting closer. The building was cracking and widening around her. Amidst the sounds of the structure aching from the crumbling floors and the shattering walls, the sounds of angry screams and painful groans continued to sound from the structure, but from the shadows deep inside, Leonard could see things in the flash of light, a large powerful female form in hues of green with wild controlled hair getting larger and bigger standing up to two stories tall…. She was angry, and getting more furious by the second.

"Oh my lord… she's bigger than I thought…." Leonard whimpered. "Wake up…." He tried to jar himself out of this dream. She was getting closer. He could see two bright green eyes from the darkness of the collapsing structure. She stood almost twenty-five feet tall now. People were deserting the streets. Motorists deserted their cars.

"Wake up, Leonard…" The short physicist felt even smaller to see a kneecap that reached over his head. "Please wake up…" The front of the building collapsed and blocked his view as two giant green hands reached out and supported the larger body coming from behind them. From the darkness, those two bright green eyes started emerging from the shadows along with a huge grinning mouth of sharp white teeth shaped by two green lips. Leonard started screaming…

Waking with a jerk, Leonard felt his heart pounding furiously in his chest. He felt as if he was having a heart attack his heart was pumping so fast. Lying next to Penny in her bed in her apartment, his eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness as his fingers picked up his inhaler from the nightstand and gave a quick spray into his mouth to help his breathing. Penny turned on the light.

"What's up?" She sleepily woke up. Leonard just looked at her blonde hair and golden pink skin and figure. She looked normal. She was normal. She was still beautiful and no larger or greener than when they went to bed.

"Nothing…" Leonard tried to forget the dream, kissed her and reached to switch off the light. Tiredly looking around once, Penny just shrugged her shoulder symbolically and sank into bed next to him with her head in his chest.


	2. Chapter 2

2

Pasadena at late afternoon just before the mad afternoon commute home was the best time for the local tourists to get around town to see the area landmarks. The sun was up in the sky against a light blue cloudless sky with a light wind cooling off the city, but instead of enjoying this nice day, struggling actress Penny Parker was at the old North Robles Night School building. It had been a mansion during Prohibition, a high school during the Forties and the Fifties and an office building in the Sixties to Mid-Seventies. Today, no one used the building for anything but a meeting hall and rental place for parties. Part of the reason the location was used so little was that people claimed to hear footsteps from upstairs when the building was empty, the sight of a little girl vanishing into rooms and the noise of unattended furniture moving in abandoned rooms. Creekwater Films was using it to make a high school movie about acceptance, and on the off-hours run auditions for their next two movies. Penny was among seventeen other girls lining the hall outside the school auditorium. She looked up as Danielle Burnside, one of her rivals came from through the double doors to the stage. Short, petite and attractive with a nice figure and large bouffant of blonde hair, she emerged into the hall with the girls standing on the far wall or sitting in the benches by the door and smiled toward them before giggling and shaking her small butt in her jeans down the hallway. Penny looked up to her and said what everyone was thinking.

"Bitch…"

"Those boobs are not real…" Penny's friend, Maddie, mumbled next to her.

"Or they're real…" Penny mumbled under breath as she read the script excerpt. "It's just that they been handled more than a basketball in a Los Angeles Lakers game."

"Parker…" Chloe Atwater, the casting director stood in the doors. "Penny Parker?" The brunette Irish-Native American looked around the hall and then noticed Penny jumping to her feet from behind the door. Maddie looked up with her regal blue eyes and took Penny's purse to hold it for her. A few deep breaths to stave off her nervousness, the two of them grinned optimistically for luck and Penny looked to Chloe holding the doors for her. Stepping forward into the large dark maw of the auditorium, the Nebraska native felt like a girl returning to high school again. Her school auditorium didn't have a balcony, but it did have a projectionist booth. Walking out to mid-stage, she watched from four feet off the lower floor as Chloe handed her resume to Tim Moss and Steve Barnette, the owners of the fledgling film company developing the movie. Sitting in the auditorium seats, they were surrounded by a few assistants and unemployed actors watching the auditions.

"You don't have a lot of work in your resume." Tim looked up to her and spoke loudly.

"Well, not a lot…" Penny waited for their instruction than try impressing them. "But I'm still trying."

"The Diary of Ann Frank?" Tim looked to Steve with a face of disbelief as they whispered back and forth. "Ann wasn't blonde!"

"She starred in "The Crutcherville Horror." Steve pointed out her one major credit to Tim.

"God, that was a horrible movie." Tim whispered back. "That giantess sequence at the end was so tagged on."

"I liked it…" Steve mumbled back. "It got a Bloody Guts Award for Story Development."

"Okay…" Tim called up to Penny on stage. "You got the lines. Give us the character."

"Okay…" Penny took a deep breath and closed her eyes to immerse herself in character. Stepping back, she pretended another personality was entering her mind, lifted her head and started speaking.

"My name is Doctor Kari Masterson…" She strolled forward a few feet. "Seven years ago, I was just your ordinary archaeologist and museum curator, but things changed for me when art thieves broke into the museum and tried to kill me." She dramatically moved her head annoyingly. "Little did I know the medieval necklace they tried to choke me with would make me stronger, faster, something more than human, but little did I suspect that the more stronger I became, the more powerful the demon trapped in the necklace was becoming. As I clean up the streets of Capitol City, he's waiting to take possession of my soul." She stood dramatically at the edge of the stage and pictured herself on the roof of a skyscraper like Tobey McGuire when Leonard took her to see "Spiderman." "Before he takes my soul, I'm kicking a little ass. This is my city, and I'm the shadow that never dies… I am… the Specter." She paused and looked around trying to be the female "Batman" imitation in the movie. Steve grinned a bit. Tim was scowling a bit.

"She's pretty good." Steve replied in a voice Penny couldn't hear. "She's almost as good as Ashley Tisdale's audition."

"I still like Monica Keena for the role." Tim jotted a few notes. "Besides, she's too tall, her skin tone is too tan, she emphasizes too many words and her figure is so goofy it will vanish in the costume. She's going look horrible as a redhead."

Chloe looked at them and rolled her eyes disgustedly.

"So we pad her boobs a bit." Steve answered back. "We have costume make them as big as we want."

"Oh God…" Chloe couldn't believe she was hearing this.

"I don't like her for the role…" Tim placed a question mark on Penny's name on the callback list. "But let's get some pictures of her costume anyway… Penny?" He raised his voice to Penny. "Can you come back Friday for a photo-shoot? We want to see how you'll might look in costume."

"I got the job?"

"No, we just want to test you in costume." Tim looked to Steve and then back to her. "Oh, we're also auditioning next week for a haunted house movie we're shooting near Sacramento. Would you be interested in…"

"Another horror movie?" Penny dropped her head a bit. "No, thank you… I don't want to get stuck doing that."

"I can respect that." Tim and Steve understood. "But keep it in mind… Chloe will give you the details."

"Thank you…" Penny motioned to the stairs going off the stage and met Chloe coming toward her. Taking the schedule sheet and an additional W-2 Form, she seemed hopeful and optimistic. She couldn't wait to tell the guys she might be playing a costumed crime-fighter.

"So, you think I might get it?" She asked Chloe.

"Run…" Chloe looked back at her two sexist employers. "Run from here and don't come back…"

Penny looked confusingly to her before exiting the auditorium.


	3. Chapter 3

3

At the Los Robles Apartment Building, a short Asian kid delivered the Chinese food to his father's customers. He hated this building. The elevator didn't work, and he always had to take the stairs to the fourth and fifth floors. Worse yet, he hated having to deal with Dr. Cooper, the nutcase in Apartment 401. The guy looked like a giant insect, never tipped and was always telling him about his own culture. Not allowed to kick his ass, young Kenny Chen-Sun just kept convincing his grandmother to keep sending curses that ruined the karma of the egomaniac. Running up to deliver the order, he hoped he got the short guy about his size with the glasses or the shorter guy with the Beatles haircut. The weird Hindu guy was okay, but he never talked.  
"Hey, Short Round…" Opening the door, Howard compared the boy to a character in an Indiana Jones movie. "Where's Indy?"

"Very funny, Mr. Wolowitz…" The boy handed over the Chinese food. "That'll be $51.23."

"Oh, good, you're back…" Sheldon also appeared in the door. "Last week you left before I could explain to you why the Shang Dynasty…."

"Just make it fifty even…" Kenny wanted to leave as fast as possible to get away from Dr. Cooper. "See you next week!" The boy took the sixty bucks Howard had produced and raced back down the steps to get away from Sheldon. Howard stood stunned and surprised with the food. The boy wanted to get away from Sheldon fast, and he got away with it with an almost seven-dollar tip.

"That boy is always in a rush." Sheldon didn't understand why people rushed away from him.

"Could you not come to the door when I'm paying for lunch!" Howard grew annoyed. "That boy is making like a bandit on tips when you show up!" He grumbled and turned back inside, but Sheldon still failed to understand the connection between the two. Inside the apartment, the regular retinue of friends gathered around to discuss the week or try to until Sheldon abducted the conversation and held it hostage. Leonard had the chair and awaited Penny who usually sat in a small seat by him. Sheldon's spot at the end of the sofa was empty with Amy Fowler holding it for him. Next to her sat Bernadette and Howard with Raj, the odd man in a seat from Leonard's desk at the end of the sofa. Their tight knit group usually gathered around to watch one of the guy's choice of movies, but no one ever knew what sort of conversation or discussion might precede it.

"Where do you think the Hulk uses the bathroom?" Raj asked. "I don't think a real toilet could hold him."

"Maybe they're fortified in the Avengers bathroom." Howard spoke with a slight chuckle. "What I'm worried about is what happens when Dr. Banner has too much Mexican food before Hulking out."

"The Hulk's metabolism is strong enough to digest anything Dr. Banner eats." Sheldon spoke. "The Hulk doesn't use the bathroom because he burns up all the extra calories and fiber."

"Oh, but what if Banner ate some gamma-spawned chili beans." Leonard asked.

"He couldn't." Sheldon spoke. "Gamma-irradiated chili beans would be too strong for Banner to eat, but if the Hulk ate them…"

"Seriously!" Bernadette cried out. "Is this what we're talking about?! The logistics of Mexican food affecting a fictional person unrealistically altered by a non-existent wavelength of energy?!" She looked at the guys looking back at her. "Come on! Can't we change the subject?" She and Amy looked at each other over their Chinese food, Amy silently applauded her for speaking up.

"You're right…" Howard understood his girlfriend's feelings. "You're right. Let's change the subject…" He paused, grinned a bit and looked up to Leonard who stared back at him over his glasses. "Leonard, why don't you tell us about that Avengers dream you had with…." He started chuckling.

"No, we're not talking about that!" He had told Howard and Raj about it once while Sheldon was late to lunch; he wasn't getting laughed at over it again. "Has anyone heard anything from Penny about her audition? Does anyone know what kind of movie it is?"

"I believe she said something about it being a dark crime drama." Amy spoke up. "I suppose that means it has a lot of night scenes."

"I think it's cool she's finally getting another movie." Bernadette replied.

"That's right…" Howard recalled the Crutcherville movie. "She did do another movie. Has anyone seen her other one yet"

"I ordered the DVD, but it hasn't arrived yet." Leonard spoke. "Third time I've ordered it; it keeps disappearing."

Amy and Bernadette looked at each other secretly. Every time one of the guys ordered the movie, they took it and hid away to keep them from seeing it as per Penny's request. She was just too embarrassed to let them see it.

"You know…" Sheldon spoke. "I imagine if the Hulk actually ate some gamma-altered chili beans that he could pass enough gas to power…"

Bernadette and Amy started bemoaning the fact that he had picked up the old conversation and had turned it to a subject about flatulence. Almost on cue, they heard knocking at the door and Penny showed up to metaphorically break bread with them and join them for dinner. She gave Leonard a kiss as she took her seat by him in the big chair.

"How did your audition go?" He asked her.

"Okay, I guess…" Penny found her regular sweet and sour rice. "They asked me back for a photo shoot, but that never means I actually get it…" She paused to sit and eat. "Usually just a bunch of pervy filmmakers making me where costumes… each one with a bra padded more than the one before it…" She started mumbling on the way her career was going.

"Penny," Sheldon spoke up. "Whatever happened to that other movie you did? You promised us we could watch it with you when you got your complimentary DVD?"

Penny, Bernadette and Amy shared secret looks at each other.

"Oh, that…." Penny looked down to her Chinese food and lied. "I, uh, kind of lost it."

"You lost it?" Howard scoffed. "But I saw it in your apartment just…"

"But I found it…." Penny added to her lie. "And let Bernadette borrow it."

"You did?" The cute microbiologist reacted unprepared. "Oh, uh, yeah, she did, and I gave it to Amy."

"Why did you bring me into this?" Amy reacted in her seat. Everyone was looking at her. "Oh, uh, yes, that's right… and I sent it to my friend Moombai in Nigeria…" She was not that skilled at impromptu deception. "Yep, that's what I did…." She ate her Chinese food.

"Leonard, it looks we're never going to see that movie." Sheldon gasped exasperatingly. "I thought you ordered another copy."

"I've ordered three…. They keep vanishing…" Leonard testified as Penny grinned secretly.

"Fear not," Howard grinned and put away his cell phone. "But I know a guy in this building who has a copy of "The Crutcherville Horror." He's bringing it right down."

Penny looked up with a mixture of embarrassed fear.

"Who do you know?" Amy asked as someone rapped at the door to the apartment. Leonard started to rise, but Raj was already by the door. Having been sitting silently listening to the conversation, he wanted to see Penny's movie too. They had read the script, analyzed it and had reached some conclusions on it. Penny sat in stunned silence as Raj opened to door to Jason Danvers, the screenwriter from the fifth floor who had adapted the script from its original novella.

"Hey, Raj…" He knew the guys as friends of Penny. "Can you give this Howard?" He produced his copy of the DVD.

"Hey, Jason…." Leonard lit up and considered Jason his friend. "Thanks for letting us borrow it."

"No problem." The writer reacted confused. "Penny didn't show it to you?"

"I lost mine." Penny lied again as Bernadette took the movie from Raj and tried to hide it.

"Well, technically," Sheldon passed off what he thought was the truth. "Penny gave her copy to Bernadette who gave it to Amy who sent it to her friend." He paused a bit annoyed. "This is the most difficult movie we've ever tried to watch!" He paused with a tired sigh and looked around the room. "Where did it go this time?!"

"Jason, you wanna stay?" Leonard looked up.

"Sorry, Leonard, but I've got to run…" Jason seemed distracted. "I'm doing re-writes for that comic book movie Penny auditioned for."

Penny now had something new to be embarrassed about. Closing the door to the hall, Raj turned around joined Leonard, Howard, Bernadette, Amy and Sheldon who all suddenly looked at Penny. The blonde one winced and held her head in her hand embarrassed. A million questions started going through their heads. Was she playing Supergirl or Batgirl? Was it even a Marvel or DC character? Why was she so reticent to talk about it?

"You're doing a comic book movie?!" The guys all lit up as Penny gritted her and struck her hand to her forehead in embarrassment. They were excited, and with the excitement came a lot of questions. Who was she playing? Was it Marvel or DC? Could they visit her on set? Could they see her in costume? They just kept coming. Under the torrent of geeky questions, Penny finally screamed out at them.

"It's not a comic book movie!" Penny grumbled over her breath. "It's based on an unpublished story by that horror writer William Collins… his wife sold the rights to all his unpublished works…"

"The William Collins?" Bernadette knew him. "I met him at a book signing in Los Angeles before he died. I loved his Gothic novels!"

"He can't be as famous as Stan Lee." Sheldon commented and ate his Chinese food. "I bet William Collins never appeared in a movie made from his characters."

"Seven of his novels became movies…" Bernadette whipped out Jason's DVD from where she had hid it from the guys. "Including this one…" Leonard plucked it from her to load into the DVD player. Bernadette looked slowly over to Penny. "Whoops…"

"Leonard…" Penny dropped her dinner and rushed to stop him. "Please, don't… I mean… you don't want to stay in and watch some silly movie." She tried taking it from him.

"Why don't you want me watching…" He suddenly wised up. "Oh my god, you've been stealing all the copies of the movie I ordered!"

"No, I haven't…" Penny tried to dissuade him. "Look, it's just one silly movie…" She noticed everyone watching how their confrontation was going.

"Penny…" Leonard spoke to her. "You made that movie three years ago… and I've never seen it. What is so wrong with this movie that you won't let me watch it?"

"Because she doesn't want you to have nightmares after seeing her grow to twenty feet tall and start eating people." Amy suddenly announced, and Penny's eyes went into shock briefly before mentally falling defeated before her friends. Sheldon scowled confusingly. Howard and Raj reacted perplexed as well. That was in the movie Penny made about an unidentified cannibal killer?

"Thank you, Amy…" Penny sarcastically grumbled very humiliatedly.

"That's why we're besties." Amy felt she had been helpful and sat back down.

"I don't remember that from the script." Leonard looked confused.

"That must be from the part of the script we didn't have!" Howard rationalized and stood at the DVD player as he looked around the room.

"Penny…" Leonard was starting to put the clues together. The lies, the subterfuge, all those missing DVDs… "Have you been preventing us from seeing your movie?"

"Technically, it's just you guys…" Amy responded. "She let Bernadette and I watch it."

"You've seen it!" Howard turned to Bernadette.

"It's so scary, Howard…" Bernadette recalled the suspense and terror of the movie. "I had nightmares for a few days after I saw it."

Leonard turned to Penny.

"You star in one movie and you've been keeping me from seeing it?" He faced her. "What could be so possibly so wrong with this movie that you'd not want me watching it?"

"Leonard, you've got to understand…" Penny was getting conflicted. "It wasn't a lot of acting. It was a lot of screaming, yelling, running, getting covered in fake blood and having my clothes ripped off my body."

"Remote! Remote!" Howard was searching the sofa. "I can't find the stinking remote!"

"It couldn't possibly be that bad!" Leonard really loved her and wanted to see what she did as a real actress, but he failed to see how much this mother embarrassed her. "I can't believe you lied to me all this time about…"

"Is that all you care about? Seeing me embarrass myself in some…" She stopped and swung her long hair back before holding her finger up pointing at him. "No. You want to watch the damn thing? Watch it! I don't have to sit here and relive it!" She turned and marched out of the apartment for her apartment. Leonard looked to Howard and Raj and back to her.

"You can't walk out on me." He responded. "I'm winning this argument…." He headed after her and slammed the door behind him. Raj was silently eating his Chinese food. Sheldon and Amy were pretending to be invisible, and Howard and Bernadette silently glanced at each other in the awkward silence. No one knew whose side to take in the fight.

"So who wants to watch Penny's movie?" Bernadette took the remote and pushed PLAY.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Penny had only received one screen role in a movie during her time in Pasadena, and she was not terribly fond of it. The low-budget movie had been produced by Orion Pictures and released through Tandamount Studios. Called "The Crutcherville Horror," it had been directed by actor and director Moses Taylor, star of the short-lived series, "Frank Wrench," and starred Penny as a girl named Lisa who with her sister, boyfriend and friends traveled down to Fort Walton Beach in Florida but became unavoidably lost in a forgotten little town called Crutcherville off the Arkansas highway. According to the movie back story hidden in the movie's snippets of dialogue, one of the town inhabitants in the Fifties dabbling in the occult became possessed by an evil presence that drove him to kill people and devour their remains as a living vampire for enhanced longevity and superhuman power. On his death, his blood infected another person to carry on the body count, and that person infected another person at death. When she became infected, Penny's character became a power-mad succubus who continued the curse and picked off the remaining survivors in town, which was basically the entire cast of the movie, leaving them as either devoured non-existent remains or incomplete bloody corpses scattered over a deserted school. In the end, possessed by her new powers and embracing her dark side, she grew taller and larger than normal as a psychopathic giantess and was blown up in a gas explosion, finally ending the cursed bloodline and leaving her boyfriend and his brother to start over anew. At Tandamount Studio, there was a rumor Taylor wanted to do a sequel. The original movie had been based on an unpublished novella by horror writer William Collins and further adapted by Jason Danvers and Craig Marmalarde, the co-writer from the "Zombie High" TV-Series. Penny could tell why Collins had never published it. It wasn't really up to the scale of his usual Gothic ghost stories. Finally getting to watch the movie, her friends now realized why she was so embarrassed by her first horror movie outing. It was an interesting deviation of the slasher movie franchise with elements of a detective movie and incorporated a lot of mystery; the plot was suspenseful and terrifying in its execution, but the logistics of the plot were unlikely, and the pinnacle with Penny's character exploding into her more than human form seemed a bit detached. Watching it again, Bernadette covered her eyes again, and Howard pulled her close and closer through the suspenseful scenes, jumping as characters were snatched and dismembered off-screen. Raj sat wide-eyed through the film and grinned a bit through the scene as Penny as Lisa grew up and out of her clothes ripping off around her, but Sheldon and Amy talked all the way through it analyzing and complaining over everything from the bad science and logistics to the bad writing. Leonard never returned to watch it with them. His voice and Penny's voice argued and screamed at each other from across the hall. It was one of their worst fights yet, but then, suddenly things went quiet over there. Howard said they had gone straight to the make-up sex.

In the morning, Sheldon woke on schedule and performed his morning ritual. Like clockwork, he cleaned and washed himself, got dressed to head to the university and prepared his regular Friday breakfast while talking out loud about his experiments and theories but upon getting ready to leave, he realized he had not seen Leonard at all. The apartment was so quiet. He finally realized he had been talking to an empty apartment.

"Oh, good lord…" Sheldon looked around the place. "I've been wasting a perfectly good conversation and there's no one here to realize how brilliant it is." A light sigh, he realized Leonard must have over-slept and was still over at Penny's apartment. Collecting his pack with his work and notes, he locked up the apartment and went looking for his errant roommate. He knocked at the blonde one's door.

"Penny?" He knocked. "Penny?" He knocked again. "Penny?" He knocked once more. There was the sound of scurrying around inside on the other side of the door, some angry footsteps stomping to the door and then the latch being undone.

"What?!" She snapped viciously. Her hair was piled up high on her head and hanging from the air over the left of her face, her top was a bit twisted from sleeping and revealed a bit too much of her chest and her sweat pants were untied, the long draw string swaying down between her legs. Her lips were parted in an angry snarl and her eyes glazed over with a hostile scowl.

"Would you tell Leonard it's time to drive me to work?"

"He's not here!" Penny snapped and slammed the door. Jumping a bit, Sheldon flinched as the door slammed shut on him and started to turn to leave, but his routine was off. He always rode with Leonard to work. If Leonard weren't available, he'd have to get his stand-by driver.

"Penny?" He knocked. "Penny?" He knocked once more. "Penny?" He knocked yet again.

The angry blonde stomped her way back to the door.

"What?!" She roared louder than before.

"You're going to have to drive me." Sheldon reminded her.

Penny slammed the door so hard this time the building felt it. Feeling the vibration through his toes and the nerves of his body, Sheldon scoffed at the situation under his breath, postured annoyingly while flaring his eyes and dared to knock once more.

"Penny?" He knocked harder. "Penny?" He knocked quicker. "Penny?" He pounded at her door, but this time when it opened, Penny was clutching an old dried out axe handle with a rusty axe head on the end reared up over her head ready to swing it at head level toward a singular target. His eyes rounding in shock, Sheldon screamed like a girl scout spilling her cookies and ran down the stairs for his life and his voice trailing behind him up the stairwell. On the fourth floor, Penny posed like Lizzie Borden on the landing with her breath racing through her lips and her chest fighting to catch her breath. She lowered the axe to the floor and dragged the axe head across the floor behind her back into her apartment. Stopping at the door, she lifted it up and suddenly realized just what she was carrying.

"Where'd I get an axe?" She asked out loud then entered her apartment. Downstairs rushing from the building lobby, Sheldon stopped at the curb and started re-catching his breath. The morning weather was cold and crisp, a glimmer of sunlight coming out over Pasadena in a golden orange blanket covering the city. Traffic was busy as usual, and pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk was building to a pitch. Pulling out his cell phone, Sheldon called his third choice.

"Hello, Howard…" His head swayed and moved with short birdlike movements. "I need a ride."

"Where's Leonard?" Howard was at his mother's house getting ready to walk out the door.

"Once again, Leonard has selfishly thought of just himself and forgotten about much more important people with much better things to do with their time." Sheldon announced.

"What about Penny?"

"I think I might have crossed some sort of line there." Sheldon reflected on the axe. "That or it's her time of the month."

"I'm on my way."

"Please, hurry, it's a bit chilly."

"Then wait inside!" Howard recommended.

Sheldon looked back to the building.

"I'm scared to."

"I'm on my way." Howard rolled his eyes and palmed the keys to his scooter in his hand. A quick good-bye to his mother, he was off to Bernadette's place and then they took her car to get Sheldon. It was almost an hour of driving, but instead of being grateful, Sheldon commiserated and complained from the back seat. Howard politely suggested dropping him off on the side of the road, but Bernadette bit her lip and restrained her last nerve to get Sheldon to the university. From there, Leonard could return to Sheldon's demanding routine in their place, but the problem was Leonard was not at the university. His parking spot was empty, he was not in the cafeteria or the physics lab not had anyone seen him. When it was time to head home, Sheldon found an envelope on his office door with money and a note to take the bus.

"So what happened to Leonard?" Amy was his preferred recourse over the bus.

"Leonard has dropped the proverbial ball." Sheldon commiserated in her passenger seat. "He just does not understand just how valuable my time is."

"He may have valuable things to do with his time."

"Hello, we're talking about me here." Sheldon responded. "Please stay on the subject." He exhaled tiredly and shook his head. "I have always trusted Leonard to assist me. He's never let me down."

"Well, that's just it…" Any drove toward Sheldon's apartment house. "Leonard is always helping you. He's always been there when you needed him so you really can't accuse him after his perfect record of failing. Maybe something happened that stopped him this time."

"Interesting…" Sheldon recognized the route they were going. The last place he saw Leonard was when he headed off in his fight with Penny last night. Could something have happened with that? He recognized the dry cleaner on his street. "Wait, where are you driving me?"

"Home?" Amy answered.

"But it's Friday." Sheldon reminded her. "I always get Tai for dinner on Friday."

"Sheldon, I have dinner with my mother on Fridays." Amy reminded him. "Do you want to come with me?"

"What are you having?"

"Beef tips, stewed cauliflower, minced turnips and three-bean rice." Amy recalled her mother's menu. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to get Tai."

She pulled up outside his apartment building.

"Sheldon," She sighed while adjusting her glasses. "I mean this with all due respect. Please get out."

Looking at her once and again, Sheldon looked to the door then glanced back to Amy. He slowly started opening it as if he expected her to suddenly change her mind. One stepped out into the sidewalk, got out of the car and then turned around and looked back in at her.

"Are you sure you don't want to get some Tai food?"

Amy reached over, closed the door and drove away in front of a sports car on her way to her mother, leaving Sheldon stymied and alienated and standing on the curb. Adjusting his pack under his arm, he looked at the few passersby on the walkway and turned away once while looking at the direction Amy had left.

"Must be her time of the month too." He mumbled and nervously re-entered the building. The first floor wasn't as bad, but reaching the second he feared he'd meet Penny at the business end of an axe again. By the third floor, he was moving even slower and creeping up the stairs, but by the fourth floor, he was tiptoeing to his door and trying to get his keys out without making them jingle, but midway through entering his apartment, he had an epiphany. Penny was not a morning person. By the afternoon, she was usually clean and prepped and as nice as a person who had only got as far as dropping out of community college. Going by her record of behavior, he recomposed himself and returned to her door.

"Penny?" He knocked. "Penny?" He knocked again. "Penny?" He knocked once more. There was a rustling inside once more, and Penny opened door in a red t-shirt and blue jeans. Her hair was brushed, but her expression was not kind. She looked ready to bite someone's head off.

"What?"

"Penny, how would you like to take me for Tai food?"

"No!" She responded curtly and slammed the door but it hit Sheldon's foot in the way. She pounded and pounded to close the door, but Sheldon wouldn't budge.

"Move your foot, Sheldon!"

"No!" He resisted. "Not till you tell me where Leonard went after he left your apartment." Penny seemed to calm down. She narrowed her eyes toward him.

"Do you want to know where Leonard went?" She answered sweetly.

"Yes, yes, I would." Sheldon answered, and Penny opened her door wide. As Sheldon strolled in, she lowered her head down low and turned her head with him as he passed by her. Deep in her head, she felt like a certain New England axe murderess. An evil little grin on her lips, her hand reached blindly for the axe by her door.

"Looks like I found something to do with this after all." She mumbled as she closed the door. Through her head, she kept hearing the soundtrack to the movie "The Amityville Horror."


	5. Chapter 5

5

A day passed, and not only was there still no Leonard, but now, there was no Sheldon. Howard and Raj sat alone with each other at the cafeteria table at lunch and spent most of their time looking around waiting for the guys to show up. After lunch, they checked Sheldon's office and the physics lab. Kripke responded that Leonard had missed his scheduled time in the lab, and Leslie did not get her morning taunt from Sheldon. What had started out very creepy had turned sinister. They met with Bernadette and Amy and eventually started debating where the guys might have gone, but when they decided to ask Penny, the blonde actress instead became a suspect in the mystery. From the guy's apartment, they watched as Penny carried her laundry basket from her apartment and headed down the stairs to the basement.

"I think we're being ridiculous." Bernadette tried to be the voice of reason. "Penny isn't a psychopathic killer."

"Then what happened to Leonard and Sheldon?" Raj asked.

"Well, Sheldon could be visiting with his mother…" Amy tried to guess. "And maybe Leonard's…"

"Given himself up to become Penny's sex slave?" Howard had the guy's extra key to Penny's apartment.

"What made your mind go there?" Bernadette asked. "That's ridiculous!"

"We're accusing Penny of murdering two of our best friends and that theory sounds ridiculous?" Amy pointed out.

"Correction…" Raj spoke up. "One of our best friends… and Sheldon." He watched as Howard unlocked Penny's door and they wandered in casually to look the place over to see if a murder had even occurred. The apartment looked clean. It was actually looking very neat and tidy, which was unusual because Penny was usually a bit messy. Howard strummed his fingers over her TV cabinet as he looked over it, and Raj merely glanced around the room. Amy and Bernadette merely walked through it and looked the room over as if they were casually waiting for Penny to return.

"What are we supposed to be looking for?" Bernadette asked.

"Anything suspicious…" Howard recalled a lot of forensic shows. "A drop of blood, a hair…"

Raj picked up a hockey mask and a plastic knife and started imitating the "Friday The 13th" theme, but Howard grabbed the toys from him and tossed them into the kitchen sink to stop him.

"Dude, don't be such a buzz kill."

"If she killed Leonard and Sheldon, what do you think she did with their bodies?" Howard looked around the room a bit stymied.

"Maybe she became like the movie and ate them." Raj asked.

"Seriously?" Howard looked at him. "You're going to go there?"

"I saw this move with Christina Ricci where she absorbed over seven guys into her body because her superhuman metabolism allowed her to digest them that fast, and that movie was on SyFy Channel and starred Richard Dean Anderson from "MacGyver!" Raj announced.

"Seriously!" Bernadette spoke up. "You're using a bad movie plot to explain what happened to Leonard and Sheldon?"

"Can you come up with a better one?" Amy poked her head into this discussion then noticed Raj. "Come on, Short Round…"

"Please don't start calling me that." Raj spoke to Amy trying to be decent. "Do you know how difficult it is to get rid of a bad…"

"Hey, Short Round…" Howard motioned to Raj. Rolling his eyes annoyingly, the Hindu astrophysicist struggled with his feelings and looked back to Howard. "Do you realize if Penny killed Sheldon that you could start dating Amy?"

The two looked at each other for all of a second as Raj tuned and looked at the mousy and bookish biologist.

"I'd be just too much woman for you." Amy announced and strided through the door into Penny's bedroom looking for something to suggest a crime scene had taken place in the apartment. She wasn't convinced one had occurred, but she did know it was odd for both Leonard and Sheldon to just vanish. The room looked clean. Pushed into the corner of the room, Penny's bed was made, her nightstand was tidy and the floor for the first time she could recall was clean. Strolling closer to the closet by the window, her foot stepped into some sticky on the floor and her eyes looked to the floor. Her back turned to the closet and the bathroom, she knelt down to tap what she suspected to be spilled tacky soda and reached down to the tip of an axe head poking out from under the bed.

"Well, this looks particularly incriminating." She assessed the bloody axe as a hand quickly clamped over her mouth and another around her waist. She couldn't see who it was, but who ever it was could lift her straight off the floor. A long strand of blonde hair came into her peripheral vision as her eyeglasses came loose in the struggle and skidded across the floor. She was being pulled back into the darkened bathroom, but in the light spilling through the door, she saw Penny's outline in the mirror out of her peripheral vision before the room turned completely black.

"Amy…" Raj entered the bedroom. "When you say too much woman…" He looked around for her. The room was empty. "Where did you go?" He glanced around the four walls to the window and noticed the large oval orbs of sunlight in the floor caused by Amy's glasses focusing them across the floor. Entering the room, he picked them up and wondered why she had left them where someone could step on them. From somewhere in the building his ears detected odds sounds of muffled pounding and thumping that ended with one abrupt knock to a hard surface. Spinning on his left heel, he turned to the guys.

"Guys…" He stood in the bedroom door. Bernadette was scanning through Penny's mail; Howard was invading her refrigerator. "Did Amy come out here?" He heard a creak behind him and started turning his head as someone clamped their hand over his mouth and pulled him back into the room before closing the door. Howard and Bernadette just turned their heads up in time to catch it

"What did you say, Raj?" Howard asked. Looking at Bernadette briefly, he set aside the cold Pepsi he had removed from Penny's refrigerator and sighed out loud as he went to check on his buddy. "Raj?" The bedroom door was locked. "Raj?"

"What could he be doing in a room full of Penny's clothes and belongings?" Bernadette wondered.

"Well…" Howard had an idea. "I could tell you, but you wouldn't like hearing it…"

Bernadette turned her big brown eyes up to him.

"Oh…" She realized what he was talking about. "Never mind… pretend I didn't ask…"

The door unlocked.

"Raj, you better be pulling your pants up, because I'm entering the room with Bernadette." He turned the doorknob and pushed against the door as the sound of faraway violins started playing. Their distant staccato was eerily appropriate as they nervously entered the last room where they had seen Raj and Amy. The sound was playing on their fears and their emotion. With it was the pounding beat of a drum hitting a constant rhythmic beat like a pounding heart.

"Who's playing horror music at a time like this?!" Bernadette asked out loud.

"Eerily appropriate, isn't it?" Penny stood behind the door. Her loose white t-shirt down to her jeans was covered in splattered blood with traces of splatter across her arms and neck. Her hair was unbrushed, it was wild and unkempt as a brief creepy little smirk adorned her lips. Upon seeing her, the sound of thunder cracked above Pasadena. Bernadette screamed. Howard looked to the window.

"Where did that thunder come from?" He responded confused. "Penny, how did you get in here?"

"Oh…" She hoisted her axe up to her shoulder. "Did you know that there is a tiny little door from my bathroom into the elevator shaft and a service ladder up the shaft from the basement? I use it every time I get locked out… Or someone goes poking into my stuff!"

"Penny…" Bernadette hid behind Howard. "How are you doing?"

"Just great…" Penny stood before them in her blood-drenched clothes. "You see, I just got this role playing Lizzie Borden in a movie… It's a really good movie, you should read the script…" She backed them through her apartment. "Anyway, I thought I'd get into character by killing a few people, and you know, it is just so much fun!" She grinned vivaciously sinister.

The background music in the apartment building turned to the theme from "Psycho."

"What the hey!" Howard reacted to the sound. "Who keeps playing that?!"

"Yeah, it's distracting…" Penny looked to the source of the music through the ceiling. "But isn't it eerily appropriate?" She reared her axe back to her shoulder and chased the two lovebirds around her sofa and toward her door, burying the axe handle into the door above them trying to get away from her.

"I knew it!" Howard shielded Bernadette from her. "I knew it! You killed Sheldon and Leonard!"

"I did not!" Penny postured psychotically. "Do you want to say hello to Leonard?" She burped loudly as if she had been drinking soda for over an hour. "There you go! He said hello!" She clutched her stomach. "Although Sheldon is still being difficult…. And in order to get everyone back together, I have to turn you into bite size pieces!" She lifted her axe up against Howard and chased them into her kitchen, but Howard climbed over her counter knocking things out of the way and then turning to grab up Bernadette who had ducked under Penny's reach. From the upstairs, the chase music of violins and drums was being joined by woodwind instruments blaring together in sequence, the booms of tubas and tinkling of piano keys to add the suspense.

"Where's that horror music coming from?" Howard looked up to the ceiling.

"Oh that…" Penny paused with a light grin. "Yeah, I've been hearing that since I picked off Jason from upstairs." She smiled as Bernadette placed her hand over her mouth offended by the revelation. "He was delicious, but then maybe he shouldn't have given you guys that DVD!."

"Oh, my god, Penny!" Bernadette reacted upset. "How could you?!"

"It was easy." Penny smirked. "I just pinned him to the floor, and then I…." She distractedly looked to Bernadette. "What do you taste like Bernadette?"

"Horrible…" She reacted terrified. "I'd go straight to your hips."

"Oh my God!" Howard suddenly wised up. "Bernadette, I know what's going on! We're dreaming! We saw that scary movie, and now, we're dreaming Penny is a serial killer because we watched that scary movie. Leonard and Sheldon are just fine!"

"You're dreaming?" She looked down to her chest. "So that's why my boobs are three cups larger. I just thought I was gaining weight!"

The music was getting louder.

"Why is that horror music getting louder?" She asked out loud.

"You would have to mention that!" Howard pulled Bernadette out of the way as Penny buried her axe head into the wall over the TV. Rushing for the door, they struggled to find it locked then raced around the sofa for the bedroom screaming and running. Howard closed the door, but Penny shattered the clouded glass in it. With Bernadette behind him, Howard looked for anything he could use in this reality and wondered why he couldn't materialize anything. All he needed was a sword, some fantasy armor or even Wolverine's claws. Growling and rushing to catch up, Penny reared back on the axe and started swinging it down on Howard, but he caught it and started struggling with her over it.

"Bernie, dream up some cops!" Howard tried to wrestle the axe from her, but she was so much more stronger than him. "The Army! The FBI! The Avengers!"

"But Howard, this is your dream!" She climbed over Penny's bed and grabbed the lamp to smash over Penny's head, but that didn't stop her or slow her down. Finally lurching the axe from her, Howard swung it backwards and hit her in the stomach with the end of the handle. Bernadette now jumped on to Penny's back and tried choking her around the neck, but Penny smashed her backward into the wall to get off her. As she turned to Howard, the Jewish engineer clenched his teeth and struck her upside the chin with the blunt end of the axe head. Penny staggered backward from that strike toward her window. Her murderous eyes lit up on him and gripped the axe handle to show him how to use it, but Howard was pushing her back off him at the same time away from the door. Somewhere a foot slipped, and Penny felt her backside breaking glass and then meeting open air. Looking behind her, she realized where she was and tried to grab the window pane, her hands coming down through the shattered glass breaking out of it as her legs flipped over and went out of the building first. Hitting the wall, Howard gasped out of breath and fell to the floor. Catching his breath, he looked out to see where she had gone and saw her body splayed out on the sidewalk outside, a distant single car horn trumpeting her end.

"Howard…" Bernadette rushed over to him. "You did it. You made it."

"Yeah…" Tired and breathless, Howard was stunned and somewhat shocked. "I guess I did." He paused and looked around. "Why aren't I waking up?" He looked around Penny's room a bit perplexed.

"Howard, let's just get out of here before anything else…" She took his arm to tug him out of the room then stopped before the bedroom door and winced a bit while holding her stomach.

"Bernie, what is it?" He pulled her close. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know…" His girlfriend was trembling. "I feel as if there's something inside me trying to get out…" He held her abdomen and bent over a bit in pain. Something was happening. She was shaking and groaning in pain, and Howard watched he could see her getting taller.

"Bernie?" He stood shocked at what he was seeing. She was growing in size and metamorphasizing right in front of him. Her body was getting bigger, her clothing was receding and popping apart at the seams as she got bigger in size. Her voice was shrieking from the pain, and Howard couldn't stop her transformation but watch in shock as his girlfriend changed form in front of him. Dropped to the floor, Bernadette felt her muscles moving, her skin stretching, bones cracking and healing over again; body tissue was moving around in her body. Her hand reached for the axe where it had fallen.

"What's happening? What's happening?!" Howard watched her rise up. She now stood another foot taller than him.

"Because Howard…" Bernadette's voice was being replaced by Penny's voice and face grinning sadistically. She removed Bernadette's eyeglasses. "The killer always returns for the sequel!" Taking possession of Bernadette, Penny swung her axe back and brought it right down on Howard's head just as everything winked out of existence. In a darkened bedroom, Penny woke with a start; her eyes widened out of terrified surprise and scared confusion. Her hand to her chest trying to contain her pounding heart, she took a few deep breaths and looked briefly to Leonard next to her before looking around once more around the room.

"What the frack!"

"Penny?" Leonard started stirring next to her. They had made up hours ago. She apologized for lying to him, and he had apologized for not realizing her feeling about her obscure low-budget movie.

"Don't ask!" She slid down under her blankets.

Across the hall, Sheldon stood in the kitchen in his robe making a cup of tea. He had heated the water to the proper hundred and twenty degrees and was dabbing his teabag its regular five dips into the water in his cup. Five dips, no more no less. As he counted the times he dropped and raised the tea bag, he heard a distant beating of a drum in the building. Lifting his head to the sound, he turned to acknowledge it, discarding his tea bag in the process and lifting his head bird-like to the sound. It was one note over and over. The rhythmic beat was like a heart beating. Someone was setting the beat for an up-coming tune. Annoyingly turning his head annoyed at the noise, and he scowled out of annoyance that his peace and quiet was now disrupted by the noise.

"_Oompah-loompah, Doopity-Doo, I've got a perfect puzzle for you_." A series of short orange-skinned men came from the hall. They had green hair, matching white tam o'shanter hats, and they all wore tiny white over-alls with curved shoes. They came from the hall, one crawled out from under the sofa and another from under the cupboard. They looked like midgets, but they looked so odd. They sung together in unison. "_Oompah-loompah, Doopity-Dee, if you are wise, you will listen to me_."

"Who are you?" Sheldon looked terrified as they converged into a tiny troop of singers looking up to him. "How did you get in here?"

"_What do you get from being an ass_?" One of them pulled Sheldon down to look him in the eye.

"_Obnoxious and spoiled and lacking in class._" Another turned Sheldon's head to face him. Making a face of terror, Sheldon set his tea on the counter and rushed to the door trying to escape from this singing band of mutant little people. He grabbed the door and swung it open to find Willie Wonka barring it in his top hat, violet coat and tan trousers. Leaning into the doorway, he turned his whimsical face with his bright blue eyes up to Sheldon.

"Where do you think you're going?" He asked straightly. Sheldon slammed the door on him.

"_Treating people like a lot of crap_…" The Oompahs were still singing in harmony as they followed Sheldon around the sofa.

"_What do you think will come of that_?"

Sheldon lifted his head up and listened a short piccolo tune in the room.

"_I don't like the look of it_."

"Keep away!" Sheldon was being herded back to the closet to the left of his entryway and gradually into the alcove of the apartment.

"_Oompah-loompah, Doopity-Doo, if you are more humble you will go far_…" The Oompahs pressed Sheldon toward the window. "_You will live in happiness too, like the Oompah-loompah, Doopity-Doo_…"

Sheldon kept pressing himself away from them until the window in his back popped open and he suddenly felt air. Grasping and scratching, he tried to cling to the windowsill, but gravity grabbed him and pulled him to Earth. The last thing Sheldon saw were those five orange faces with the green bouffants in their tiny little work uniforms staring down to him in the street from four stories above him. The piccolo music sounded again.

"_Doopity-Doo_…"

Awaking with a start, Sheldon sat up straight in bed. His heart was racing. He had sweat pouring down his face, and his eyes were widened with fear and terror over having experienced his death at the hands of that orange-skinned harmonic homicidal chocolate-making team. He took a deep breath from the unfathomable depths within his body and turned his head to the proximity of his roommate staying the night with their female neighbor across the hall, spewing his voice forward in one loud hysterical scream for help.

"Leonard!"

END


End file.
